After a lot of frustration and two failed attempts to get Debian installed, I reformatted the partition and reinstalled Knoppix to the hard drive. Worked like a champ. It results in a Debian system that uses the Knoppix methods for networking and such.

So I now have a functional copy of Knoppix installed on a separate partition from Windows 2000 on a Panasonic CF28 ToughBook.

For those people having trouble booting knoppix CDs on one of these, here is what got me into the system (type at the Boot: prompt) :

knoppix vga=normal screen=640x480 noapm

I tried many many other variations, and these three options worked reliably to get me into the GUI. From there you can change the screen selections to specify the video card, in my unit an SM710 Lynx EM card. Then you can go with 800x600 (maybe).